hey, I'm still alive. are you?

So, we are at test day plus 12. The results should be in within another 2 weeks. I am still very excited about it, and not anxious that I didn't do well. I really did a good job of preparing for it!

There is, however, another matter. I am having the crisis of conscience that a lot of people get when they are a lot younger than me. I am having the "green" crisis, in two ways: 1) green as in 'environmentalism' and all it entails, and 2) green as in 'money isn't everything.'

There is a year here for me to kill before I go to law school, wherever that will be. I will eventually need to get a job for that year. I wouold really like to do something this year that will make a difference in peoples' lives.

In a lot of ways the next year will be painful because I was really used to making a very generous income, and when this happens, it does go to your head whether you want it to or not. I remember when I first got laid off saying out loud to a friend of mine "It would be horrible going to a job where I only made $50K."

Yeah...I said it then. I look at it now and I feel really horrible about it because of the distorted view of financial reality that I had. If that job would have gone on for another year, I might have lost my soul without even realizing it. Maybe not, but it was a close thing.

Not to worry; I'm back. It will be painful to make the adjustments I need to make, but not really too much. Quite honestly I don't like people who make a whole lot of money and think they are better than everybody else. I don't want to be in that world any more. I have found WITHOUT EXCEPTION that the people that I still talk to and am friends with are not making a whole lot of money, never really had made a lot of money, and don't really care to make a lot of money. I like it much better this way.

All of the friends I lost were prettty much elitist pricks anyway. Money brought jealousy and competitiveness (bad competitiveness...I mean one-upmanship) that I really don't want around me. I don't want to have to pretend to be somebody I am not any more. Just being myself again I have found that it's pretty easy to make friends and be a good person...before I was in a world of moneygrubbers and backstabbers, beautiful but SHALLOW people, and lots of heartbreak.

So, now that I find myself here 'in myself' again, I have a year before I go to school to do something really special. Not really to re-invent myself, but to make use of the compassion that I really have to enrich the lives of others.

I've been applying for jobs this week. Generally, I have been focusing in banking jobs focusing on fraud detection and anti-money laundering activity. This may not be 100% compatible with my 'vision' of what I could be doing for the next year, but it is something that I am qualified for, and it would avoid the people that I have been around for the last 10 years (actually, it might put some of them in jail, which would be fine with me). Also it would keep me out of sales, because I no longer feel that an income that is based ONLY on commission is just or fair (FYI mortgage people working on commission: give it up. It's never coming back. You are wasting your time and soul, if you had one to begin with).

While I could do any of those jobs and feel that I would be good at any of them, I am in a way hoping that nobody calls me from those jobs. I would rather spend the next year of my life working for the following issues that I believe in:

Social justice, tolerance for religion, sexuality, race, and every nation's right to self-determination, environmental policy change, literacy and the promotion of freedom of thought and expression, and the protections of those that cannot protect themselves (children, women abused by men, and mistreated animals).

I can say at this point in my life that these are the things I believe in without question. I can also say that I THINK THAT ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY.

Because of my past financial success, and because I am a straight Christian-raised caucasian male who has never had anything horrible happen to me in my life, I'm finding it difficult to both transition into what I would consider to be a socially-positive lifestyle (meaning making a difference in any one of those areas I mentioned), and I am also finding it difficult to justify my credibility in these areas.

It's going to be a struggle to make this paradigm shift into a dirty hippie liberal. Nobody is going to believe me.

Nonetheless...I am going to do it. I'm really going to try to make a difference.

This is also going to color what direction I want to go in with my career in law. Yes, I have the potential to make a lot of money, but...to be quite honest, I've made a lot of money. It didn't make me happy. Jesus, I'm crying typing this. I met horrible people that brought really vain and jealous traits in me. I saw the kind of atmosphere that a purely money-based sense of worth and beauty brings.

And, to women, I know what it feels like to be judged entirely by your looks. It's the same thing as being judged entirely by your wallet or your car.

Miami...is...horrible.

Heh...I was expecting at least SOME comment on my badass moustache.

In any case, it is now 24 hours away from the LSAT. I have taken 11 practice tests in June, with the following scores:

178 168 170 164 168 173 166 174 175 169 168

This is an average of 170.2.

What do the numbers mean? The LSAT is a scaled score test with a range of 120-180. The test is taken by all students who are trying to get into law school, and by ONLY students that are trying to get into law school. There is no such thing as a "passing" grade, but the score that you get on your test will determine what type of school you have the possibility of being accepted to.

The mid-range of scores (where the middle 60% of test takers fall) is from 146-159. This is where most law students end up. The 20% that are below this could get into law school, but it wouldn't be a very good school at all. The 146-159 students are all pretty much in the same boat, as in going to whatever state school they want and having a normal career, etc.

Me? I intend to be elite. I intend to get into the best schools and have the best career. This means that I need to get into the 90th percentile.

164 90th percentile
167 95th percentile
172 99th percentile

My work has indicated that I am between the 95th and 99th percentile of all students trying to get into law school. It is very possible to get into the 172+ range, as I have done this on 4 occasions. If I get a 172 on the LSAT, I am pretty much going to any school in the country I want, perhaps for free.

My work has consistently shown that I have Ivy League potential. I am confident that the score I get on the test will be definitely above the minimum that I will be satisfied with (164), and probably above the 95th percentile (167). The goal that I set for myself at the beginning of study was 170. To be honest, I did not really think that this was a realistic goal; just one that I was setting my sights for. Now that it is within my reach, I feel very proud of myself for setting my goals that high.

Please think kindly of me for tomorrow...I'm ready for this test, but I have a lot riding on it. I quit my job in February so that I could study for this test full time. I have made sacrifices that I cannot even begin to describe here, just to put myself in the best possible position I could be in to succeed on this test.

I've got one more practice test to take and then it is up to Ft Lauderdale to stay in a nice hotel room for the night.

Please wish me luck, it means a lot to me!

Who wants a moustache ride?



Quite dashing, don't you think?

Score 178
My last practice test for the LSAT put me at 178. A 180 is a perfect score. I am shooting for a 170 on the actual test, which is on the 16th.

What does the 178 mean? Not much in reality, because it is a practice test. However, I feel pretty strongly that this score indicates that I have the cognitive aspects of the LSAT down cold, and that there really isn't room to improve there. Thus, I have almost two weeks to improve the mechanics of my technique.

I don't plan on getting a 178 on the test. I'd like to get a 170+, but now I know for sure what I am capable of, so that when I do get the score of the actual test, I will know whether or not I performed up to my abilities, or if it would be in my best interest to take it again.

After all...we are shooting for Ivy League here. That's right...Harvard, Yale, Cornell, NYU, Berkeley, USC, Northwestern, Chicago. The BEST law schools in the US. A guarantee as strong as any that I will never be wanting financially.

Also: April 28th was 182 pounds, this morning (Jun 3) is 169 pounds. The goal is to be under 160 by July.

Then, maybe I will go look for a job.

:rockon:

I'm Nancy )
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The freedom of not working :

It's 2:00 in the afternoon here in Miami. I am sitting in the Barnes & Noble cafe enjoying a cup of real coffee (I.E.: not Cuban coffee). It is a beautiful and sunny day, as it always is this time of year just before summer, and I had no idea what day this is.

Well, that's not entirely true. I thought it was Saturday. It isn't, of course; it's Friday today.

Well, how would I know? I don't even need to get out of bed in the morning if I don't feel like it. My days are filled with languor and coffee, studying for the LSAT, and reflection on the events of the last year.

I still don't know if I want to get a job or not. I am almost come to grips with the idea of a year-long reinvention of the self. I'll probably have to do something just to keep myself from going crazy, but the listlessness I feel right now isn't exactly unpleasant.

In so many ways I am so much more fortunate to have said goodbye to my last career than if I would have tried to hang on to it. With finance goes the economy; therefore, since the economy is garbage any job in finance, and certainly one paid on commission, is garbage. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

I got four books today:

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William Shirer, originally published in 1960. This is one of the authoritative accounts from a historical perspective. It looks to be quite exhaustive.

Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General by Erich von Manstein (well...not the most brilliant in my opinion; but one of the best).

Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzche, which is a recently published work that describes the social and national environment in Germany 1933 through the war years. I am particularly interested in this book because anti-Semitism is discussed at length, and it is something that I don't quite understand (as in how can a group of people become the object of such treatment and vilification).

The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism by Anthony Read, which tackles another interwar subject that I am obsessed with: the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviets.

If I had my way, I could spend the rest of my life studying history, and reading and writing about it. I know it doesn't sound very intersting, but I think that this is largely because of the way history is taught. I really have no interest in becoming a history professor, because I really don't think there is a future in it for me that would allow me to be successful. Writing, however, is something I have always wanted to do.

And now the narrative rambles.

Writing has always been the career that I wanted more than anything else, but the more I consider it, the more I think that I wouldn't be any good at it. I don't know whether I would want to write fiction or fact. I don't know if I write fiction whether I would write fantasy or the Great American Novel. If I write non-fiction, I don't know that my work could ever be thorough enough to be accepted by academia.

In short, The closer I get to doing what I want, the farther I am away. It reminds me of the guy that said "the wise man only knows that he knows little" or something like that. I love philosophy, but I kind of think that memorizing the names that go along with it is just as boring as learning history without the passion for it.

I do feel though that the art of the word - in some way or another - is where my future is. I just have to find it. I read something interesting in my LSAT studies yesterday. My course book says that lawyers are notoriously bad writers. I find this unacceptable and I promise that I will at least be a lawyer that doesn't sound like an idiot whan he writes.

If anybody wants to know any really good history books relating to any subject or time period since revolutionary France, let me know, and I can point you in the right direction.

New blog for 4/24.

My LSAT predictor right now is 160. My test is in the middle of June. I am shooting for 170.

I would really really like to go to a good law school, it would justify a lot of past choices I had made. Wish me luck!

There has NEVER been a better time to be unemployed. I have to say that I am seriously having the time of my life right now.

Peace!